Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Manuscripts Galore
This past week I have been working on putting together some hard evidence for my youth concerning the Bible, specifically the New Testament. Based on my findings in Josh McDowell's The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict and A Ready Defense, I discovered that the Bible is a more reliable source than many books of antiquity that we teach in our schools. For example; did you realize that Homer's Iliad has 653 manuscripts with a time span of 400 years between the date written and the earliest copy? Caesar's Gallic Wars has only 10 manuscripts and a time span of 1,000 years. Plato's famous writings sport only 7 copies with a time span of 1,300 years. Now take a look at the New Testament. We have 5,366 manuscripts (this includes fragments, full books, most of the n.t., and all of the n.t.) with a time span ranging from 50-225 years. No other book comes close to the N.T. in numbers and time span between original and earliest copies. A thought to ponder...
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4 comments:
Anything by Brian McLaren is a good read. It may make those who can't think outside the lines a little nervous. I have a question, since you obviously hold a high view of scripture, do you find yourself worshipping the Word more than the one who have us the Word? Just wondering.
Sorry, the last line should read "who gave us the Word".
In response to flatlander. I guess I'm a little confused on your question. Are you asking whether or not I have found myself worshipping the Bible (collection of books) or the Word of God? How do you differentiate between God and His Word? Are His Words another entity in themselves? The object of my worship is God Himself through the use of His Word. Maybe that answers your question.
I see that you worship the object of the word - God - and not the Bible itself which becomes a problem for many - to the point that God gets left out of the mix because of the fight over things like enerrancy and infallibility. I totally agree that it is marvelous that there are so few years between the events described in the Bible and the manuscripts that refer to them - much less than others from antiquity. Not to mention the vast numbers of manuscripts that substantiate the evidence.
I'm not really attempting to differentiate anything other than make a point that too much focus can be spent upon the defense of God's word, which stands on its own by the way, when it would benefit us more to spend time reading to hear what God is trying to say to us. Who knows, we might just hear something.
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